neil-gaiman:abyssalcorvid:neil-gaiman:windex-for-blood:neil-gaiman:derpyslurpy-da-derp-master:damnia
neil-gaiman:abyssalcorvid:neil-gaiman:windex-for-blood:neil-gaiman:derpyslurpy-da-derp-master:damnianweynee:subterranean-fire:Ecosocialist praxisI support you poison IvyReblog if you support Poison IvyThat’s my girl. Man, you wrote a story about how she was “crazy” because you wanted a justification for why she was in Arkham, don’t act like you stan now.No, funny person, I wrote her original Secret Origin story as a narrative about a man investigating her who sent her to Arkham, after deciding that he couldn’t cope with her and that she couldn’t reliably be manipulated into working for the US government. And if I didn’t love her I wouldn’t have written her Secret Origin or put her in Black Orchid, back when she was a semi-forgotten Batman baddie. I still love and am proud of how much of what I wrote in that ten page comic has survived and become a solid part of the mythology over the last 35 years. So, I went and found the story and read it. Because I love Poison Ivy, and I love Neil’s writing. And it’s as he says. It does not portray Ivy as crazy, it portrays her as a person imprisoned alone, with only potted plants and whoever might visit her, and it’s implied that the POV male character is only allowed to visit her because he’s a government official, who is specifically there to determine whether she’d be a suitable candidate for the Suicide Squad program. And Ivy is desperate to escape this solitude and imprisonment, desperate to get back to nature and the plants she connects with more than humans. And she has two powers at her disposal- manipulation, and control over plants. And in her cell, all she can use is manipulation. It’s worth noting that the only guards we see are women, which is likely very intentional in and out of story, under the idea that women, at least straight women, would be less susceptible to her manipulation.Ivy is not portrayed as crazy, she’s portrayed as desperate, and knows how to use her powers to get freedom. Unfortunately, she scared the man too much, and he, as many men, confronted with women they cannot control, do, declares she is crazy, and consigns her to Arkham.I don’t know if I’d say its a sympathetic view of Ivy, because I’m far from unbiased. I love Ivy, I know her as the character she is now, I am already sympathetic to her. But I think it’s a nuanced portrayal of her, written with pathos, and an understanding of her.I remember looking at the various Ivy origins before I wrote the story, and realising that none of the people who had come up with Poison Ivy origins had read any of the other comics. She had at least three contradictory origins and a number of different real names because, I think, no one could be bothered to check. I wanted to build something that went all the way back to her first appearance (which I had read, when I was about seven, and which I had never forgotten). I think what I love best about the Secret Origin is that it feels like a foundation stone people have used ever since to build Poison Ivy on. (As opposed to the Riddler Secret Origin I wrote, which put him into a costume he’s used since, but wasn’t really anything to build a character on, because it wasn’t that kind of a story.) -- source link